Is your on-board sound chip disabled in the bios and the drivers for it uninstalled?

JeronCoolman wrote:

Scott Carnegie wrote: Soundblaster cards work. The Audigy 2 ZS I have works without problems. Do the USB and PCMCIA Soundblaster cards work too? (I should have said in my post that I want an audio card of a more professional quality than a "gaming" soundblaster card; e.g. good ASIO drivers and balanced outputs, etc. That is where I've wasted so much money...)

 

HI JERON:

I have been having the same REALTECK problem that seems to have flooded these boards. My case is Laptop. I didn't do the proper research re: audio card before purchasing. Anyway here I am. Need a solution to the audio error. The 2 suggestion on this thread:

1. Update Realteck HD Audio Drivers.  (not sure if or how to go about this)

2. Replace audio card. Creative has a Notebook card called "Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook" which slips in PCMCIA slot. I can use this, and am happy to buy it, but want to spend the money on a sure fix. In your opinion is this a viable option?

(I'm no techy pro here, just trying to set up an Avid Xpress Pro system on my laptop)

THANKS!

 

 

The Dare,

1. Check you laptop's manufacturer's web site for updates to the Realtek driver. If they don't have any, you can try the Realtek web site. I think the download site is http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/dlac97-2.aspx?lineid=5&famid=12&series=8&Software=True

2. I've bought 2 M-Audio cards that were posted by an Avid employee in the old forums as being "tested" (which is the closest we have to an "official supported audio hardware list"). Both of them have drivers that cause my computer to "blue-screen" and crash only when I run Xpress Pro. Their drivers have not been updated since May of last year.

Until Avid recognizes that audio is an important part of their Xpress Pro users' experience and decides to officially support some audio hardware, we are all on our own when it comes to audio. That means your guess is as good as mine when it comes to the Audigy Notebook card. If any audio hardware would work on the laptop, I'd guess it is the Audigy one. The desktop Audigy 2 ZS seems to be the only one that people consistantly don't have problems with on the forums.

Jeron

   I'm realy sad with this audio card problem. I have just bought my Acer Aspire 5670 that came with a realtek audio card. I can't make avid work on this computer.

   I have spent all my money on the notebook and now i don't have enought money to buy the SB card.

   I have tryed diferent drivers and tricks to make it work but no sucess.

   Till now i have no solutions, hope someone have one!

 

Uhuu don't give up. I think most people have finally gotten it to work. You did try drivers from the Acer web site and from the Realtek web site?

The entire weak commitment to audio by Avid, saddens me too. Which is why I'm posting this from my new MacBook and learning FCP (should be here any day) to run on it instead of a PC laptop with Xpress Pro.

Thanks Jeron

Is there anybody who have reported sucess with the realtek hd card?

here in Brazil is dificult and expensive to buy a PCMCIA audio card. That's why i'm a little sad.

I have tried the Acer website audio driver and the realtek website audio driver.

 My avid is Pro HD 5.2.3

My computer is an Acer Aspire 5670.

I don't know what more to try. =(

Thanks for your atention!

 

 

 

Uhuu182 wrote:

I'm realy sad with this audio card problem. I have just bought my Acer Aspire 5670 that came with a realtek audio card. I can't make avid work on this computer.    I have spent all my money on the notebook and now i don't have enought money to buy the SB card.

Buy - a -supported - laptop.

Let me clearify this. If you bought a desktop that uses the RealTek audio system built in, you're best off to disable it and buy a Soundblaster sound card. This is exactly what I did last year. At the time RealTek didn't work with Avid at all, then one of the updates said it would work (don't remember which one) but oviously there are still some problems.

If you bought a laptop with the RealTek audio system then you might be out of luck. Perhaps a newer version of a supported laptop would work, but Acer is nowhere on Avid's spec list.

http://www.avid.com/products/xpressprohd/specs.asp

It is not Avid's fault that you didn't do the research. A search on this forum for RealTek would have given you the info you need to see the problems people were having with it. 

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but the buyer has some responsibility to make sure that they buy the right peice of equipment for their needs. If you get an allen wrench to try to take out a nail, it won't work. You don't then complain to the manufacturer of the allen wrench that it's not working, you get the right peice of equipment to do the job.

Scott Carnegie wrote:

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but the buyer has some responsibility to make sure that they buy the right peice of equipment for their needs. If you get an allen wrench to try to take out a nail, it won't work. You don't then complain to the manufacturer of the allen wrench that it's not working, you get the right peice of equipment to do the job.

Yes. It is 100% the buyer's fault for not fully researching the Avid software BEFORE purchase. It's not Avid's fault that there is no mention of issues related to a common audio card as supplied by high-profile media computer providers such as HP, on the Avid website.

Neither is it Avid's fault that they release a version of the Xpress Pro software which they claim solves the Realtek problem - when in point of actual fact it doesn't.

And it's certainly not Avid's fault that a prospective buyer did not fully test the 30-day trial version of Xpress Pro before committing to purchase to ensure compatibility with their system - whoops, silly me, I forgot that Avid doesn't actually provide trial software for just such a purpose. Ah well, caveat emptor.

And of course Avid can hardly be held accountable when one of its authorised distributing agents tells the customer that he shouldn't have any problem running Xpress Pro on a system with a Realtek HD card (let's be fair about this, if the agent acknowledged that there was such an issue, the customer isn't likely to buy the software is he? ...and Avid wouldn't be able to then say to the customer, "...we're sorry you were given misleading information. We don't know why you would have been told there was not an issue. We assure you we will inform the reseller of the true fact. No, it's against company policy to issue a refund unless the software itself is defective. Perhaps you could purchase another computer."

Naturally no one would expect the Avid software to possess the ability to remove a nail or, indeed, any other basic carpentry function. However, I don't think it unreasonable an expectation that a high profile non-linear edit package could actually talk to a common audio card - especially when an inability to do so has been known for many, many, many months.

The sooner Avid loses its position as 'the NLE of choice for professionals', the sooner they'll get it in their particularly arrogant corporate skull the importance of fixing major problems in their software.

Very harsh.  And accurate.  Business world littered with empty shells of arrogant "King of the Hill" companies who listened to their sycophants (usage/sp?) instead of disgruntled customers.

            I’m not complaining about avid software, and I’ve never asked for an update or something like that, I’m just asking if there is any way to run avid on this notebook. When I bought this notebook I have seen the spec list and notice that acer is not there. But the price was too good and except this realtek issues, it feats perfectly for me.

I already have Avid running on my desktop, and I was just wondering to have it working on my notebook too.

            There is a considerable number of user with the same problem than me, and it’s very possible that someone made avid run with a realtek card.

            I still sad for couldn’t run Avid on my notebook, and I’m thinking about put a SB Audigy card in it. I really hope that there is someway to bypass the realtek card. So I still asking if someone who made Avid runs with the Realtek card, please post here a solution for everybody who have the card, doesn’t need to buy an expensive card.

 

            Thanks for you attention guys, and Thanks baklap and Jeron

Scott Carnegie wrote:

Let me clearify this. If you bought a desktop that uses the RealTek audio system built in, you're best off to disable it and buy a Soundblaster sound card. This is exactly what I did last year. At the time RealTek didn't work with Avid at all, then one of the updates said it would work (don't remember which one) but oviously there are still some problems. ... It is not Avid's fault that you didn't do the research. A search on this forum for RealTek would have given you the info you need to see the problems people were having with it.

I do agree with you Scott, that you should do research first, but Avid "officially supports" Realtek just as much as it "officially supports" Soundblaster.

Avid has to take some blame for not making any real effort to support any audio hardware at all.

I see no list of supported audio hardware anywhere on the "qualified system" spec page and that is part of the problem. Some people might see the lack of any mention of audio on the "qualified system" spec page as being, "Oh it must support any audio hardware" or "Audio hardware must not be a problem since they don't list any supported hardware."

People aren't seeing the real message that Avid is saying which is, "If you want audio good luck, you are on your own, we don't support any"

I learned my lesson about ten years ago when I purchased ProTools. I found out I had to buy a new computer system that was qualified by Digidesign before I could run it successfully. At the time this was new to me...previous sofware purchases (graphics, photoretouching, office, etc.) had not been limited to a specific type of computer processor but only to a specific operating system. I was really teed off and I thought they should have made this clear in BIG RED LETTERS on the package or sales info. But, you live and learn. I bought a new computer.

But since then, I have come to terms with this and only buy systems listed on the qualified systems page. Period. I did find it odd that I had to buy a specific computer to run ProTools (and then Avid). Although I've come to realize the benefits of Avid developers qualifying specific computers because of the stability that is inherent in sticking with one of their tested and qualified systems. (evidently, the combinations and permutations of various system configurations makes it difficult, if not virtually impossible to ensure compatibility (at least for sophisticated media software such as XpressPro and ProTools) with the wide variety of system configurations that are out there.)

I agree that it is odd that virtually all third party sound cards are not officially supported or have only been "officially supported" in recent versions of XpressPro (and evidently still don't work for all users). But, as Scott is saying...when you buy a qualified system you pretty much avoid the problem entirely.

here's a rant, and some advice.  First the Rant.

Realteck Audio cards aren't offered on supported computers and laptops.  the reason Avid has a supported list is because they test a variety of systems with diferent price points that have enough performance power to do the tasks the end-user expects to work, like editing with HDV or 1:1 SD, or DNxHD.  sure, it would be awesome if Xpress Pro ran corectly on a  $800 laptop you could buy at BestBuy, but a Pavillion or an "aspire" are put out for a certain price point to attract those who want to email pictures and maybe use windows media player to edit a home movie. 

Just because my Honda Civic LE has 4 wheels and an engine doesn't mean it will drive 170mph, and expecting it to handle that out-of-the box is just absurd. you want to drive 170mph?  get a sports car that costs 3 times as much.  you get what you pay for.

now it is NOT Avid's responsibility to test the lower end systems with generic audio and video cards so that some joe with $2k in his pocket can "play" with video.  They have a responsibility to serve the professionals who want a reliable-working-out-of-the-box system.  if you want to make a living with Avid, spend the money at the front end, and if you're good and sucessfull, you'll make that money back in no time. no more frankenstein computer building, no more complaining that the Intel Integrated Graphics card on your eMachine's computer is freaking out over OpenGL loading, and no more soap box rantings that Avid should do everything under the sun to support every single piece of computer hardware out there.

the fact is, do the research,  check the specifications pages, and buy what's supported.  it's not there for a good read or laugh, it's there because it's important.

End Rant.



Now for advice. i found this in an OOoooooold release note from version 4.1, that i had to do from time to time with supported host audio cards.

Sound Card Configuration with Surround Sound Capabilities

If your system has a surround sound audio chip installed, the Avid application might not be able to fully configure the Windows Mixer to properly output audio.

By default, Avid mutes all output sources except the primary audio, which is typically WAVE.

Some surround sound devices require other audio output sources such as Front Speakers to not be muted. To prevent the Avid software from improperly muting these outputs, you must override the Sound Card Configuration setting. To allow for overriding this mute feature on your system, Avid has added an Override Mute menu in the Sound Card Configuration Settings dialog box.

1. From the Sound Card Configuration Settings dialog box, click the Override Mute pop-up menu.

The menu contains a list of the output sources available in the Windows Mixer.

2. Click one or more of the output sources to override the Avid system and leave the mute settings as they are set in the operating system.

For example, if the Windows operating system Volume Control panel is set to mute the sources, then Avid leaves those source muted. If the Windows operating system Volume Control panel is set not to mute the sources, then Avid leaves those sources not muted.

that may or may not work for you... but it's worth a try.

FunkyDragon wrote:

now it is NOT Avid's responsibility to test the lower end systems with generic audio and video cards so that some joe with $2k in his pocket can "play" with video.  They have a responsibility to serve the professionals who want a reliable-working-out-of-the-box system.  if you want to make a living with Avid, spend the money at the front end, and if you're good and sucessfull, you'll make that money back in no time.

If Avid truely has a responsibility to the professionals who want a reliable-working-out-of-the-box system, then they should sell and support computers that are configured with their software to professionals; not just the software.

I'm in the software industry and most of the time, when I sell software, the customer wants me to buy the computer and configure it as well. The customer wants one P.O. and wants to deal with one vendor. This is not an uncommon practice at all.

Not all people that buy and use Avid's software are professionals that use the products to make money, some are people like students who use the software for learning or school projects and people who use the products for creative endeavors.

As computers get more powerful and cheaper, there will be more and more non-professional consumers that will want to purchase Avid's products to run on their game machines and media center machines. If that is true and Avid did test on "lower end machines" or at the very least, more hardware; e.g. AMD and ATI hardware, they could qualifiy more hardware and potentially sell more software.

The cost and effort to test and qualify more hardware is a win-win proposition for Avid. Their customers have more choices of hardware to run (not to mention a more stable product) and Avid sells more software.

They could start by qualifying at least one sound card to add to the "Minimum PC System Specifications for Avid Xpress Pro" bullet list on the system requirements page. Why even have that list if it is incomplete?